Visiting a new church

For the past several weeks, I've been meaning to visit the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, the Catholic church that's on the border between the Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. It's a century-old parish that now occupies a 1930s-vintage Romanesque basilica. The parish and its services reflect the growing Washington immigrant community in that neighborhood, and on Sundays, only one Mass is said in English, with four in Spanish, plus others in Vietnamese and Haitian Creole. And, while it's a well-attended church, the immigrant nature of the parish shows in the apparent long-term financial shortfalls of the parish budget and their need for some major capital improvements. The parish is staffed by Capuchin monks (the monastic order after which the coffee drink cappuccino is named in honor of the light brown color of the monks' robes).

Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost, so I showed up at the one and only English Mass wearing my red sweater in honor of the liturgical color of the day. It's a little farther from the Metro stop to the church than I expected, so I was a little worried about being late to Mass. Then, when I got to the church grounds, I was further slowed by a Hispanic street market set up along the sidewalks and the crowds browsing there. But, I needed have worried, since the Mass started about ten minutes late.

Inside, it's a pretty church. The cruciform floorplan used in many churches is something that dates from the late medieval Gothic era; in contrast, this church is laid out as a traditional T-shaped basillica, the design used in the early church and through the Romanesque period. As is traditional with this type of architecture, the windows and arches are all rounded at the top instead of pointed, and there is a large dome over the crossing. There is a beautiful high altar surmounted by its own dome, but they don't use it as an altar anymore. Instead, they have a rather too-small table set up near the altar rail that serves as an altar and it is positioned to allow the priest celebrant to stand behind it and face the people (I would remind the monks that Vatican II allowed the possibility of standing behind the altar, but did not mandate it!).



The interior surfaces reflect the practicality and experimentation of the 1930s, with what appears to be brushed concrete instead of big marble stones making up the walls. The interior decoration is traditional, yet I had a strong feeling of the influence of the Art Deco movement of the period. I didn't get close enough to inspect, but it looked like "mosaic" art was actually painted on instead of being made from small colored tiles.

A large pipe organ is located in the balcony at the back of the nave, but, alas, it wasn't used. They had a praise band with a piano, guitar, and violin up front in the side of the sanctuary with a small volunteer choir to provide musical support.

As usual in Catholic churches, side altars flank the high altar. Here, the Joseph altar is on the left and below the Marian altar is on the right. The shrine to the BVM was quite well illuminated with dozens and dozens of votive candles!

Once we finally got started with Mass, we got fed a diet of bad contemporary Catholic music by Haugen, Haas, and Hurd. The Mass setting was Mass of Light by David Haas (though they took the Gloria at what I thought was a Muzak pace—and I can say that after all the hours I once spent learning to play the very involved accompaniment at the proper faster speed). Hymns included two Marty Haugen ditties, "Send Down the Fire" and "Spirit Blowing through Creation" for the processional and the offertory, then Bob Hurd's mixed Spanish-English song "Envia tu Espiritu" for the recessional. While I saw some Hispanic parishioners singing along to "Envia tu Espiritu," for the most part, the primarily Anglo congregation stood in stony silence during the hymns and the Mass setting. I don't know if they are merely a non-singing congregation or if they just don't like contemporary Catholic music. The choir and praise band sang everything pretty much as a solo performance. My only complaint with them was that they were miked, and the several microphones in their midst were placed in such a way that two or three voices were directly picked up and stuck out over the choral blend.

I'm not sure if it was scheduled or not, but the priest took it upon himself to sing a capella the traditional chant Veni Creator Spiritus in Latin as a solo sequence hymn. He also had to sing the Haas arrangement of the eucharistic prayer, a nasty, mournful composition, and, judging from his lack of familiarity with the "tune," I'm going to guess that it was a special thing just for Pentecost.

The priest gave an interesting (and pleasantly brief) homily talking about how our goal in life should be to act and behave in a way leading to our eventual canonization as a saint.

Liturgically, they did something I didn't like: inclusive language. They did the switch of "It is right to give Him thanks and praise" to "It is right to give God thanks and praise" and one or two other similar incidents.

One thing I noticed about the service was how very undisciplined the congregation was. Lots of families with small children chose to sit in the transepts and they let their children run around wild during Mass, so their noise echoed throughout the church. Lots of babies cried and screamed unabated (no crying room!). Several people tried to pass the peace with more than just their immediate neighbors. Lots of people got up and down during the service (bathroom breaks? cigarette breaks?). Often, I heard the murmur of conversations, especially during the homily and communion. People didn't go to communion in row by row order, but just went up at random. One man walked up to communion early and stood on a kneeler by the altar rail to "sing" with the choir. Several acolytes seemed untrained and had to be prompted to carry out their duties. Parishioners came up at the end of Mass to give 10-15 minutes' worth of announcements (the length was bad enough, but the majority of the announcers didn't speak into the microphone and I couldn't hear them). So, it was a very interesting morning.

On the way home after Mass, I stopped off and had a cappuccino.